There’s one very logical reason why Google opens almost all their projects and services as a limited beta before exposing them to the world. The more people testing things, the better. With something as personal as Glass, it would make sense for Google to want to beta test in as many unique situations as possible. That’s where the “if I had Glass” campaign comes in.

Google asked devout fans to take to social media and let them know what they’d do with Google Glass. There have been some genuinely interesting, noble and sentimental reasons posted for why people want Glass, but there have also been some real trouble-makers throwing their hats into the ring.

It seems that instead of actually going through the submissions received, Google just picked if I had Glass winners at random. And now they’re having to go back and tell certain people they actually aren’t allowed in the program. Disqualified applicants, who Google says didn’t follow the guidelines for the contest, include someone who wants to simply throw it at your face and someone who just wants to “cut a bitch.”

To add to the problem of picking applications at random, it seems that the purchasing guidelines surrounding the if I had Glass campaign haven’t been clear. There are droves of people who made it into the explorer program commenting that they either didn’t know they had to still purchase Glass, for $1,500, or people saying they simply don’t have the money.

At this point, it would seem that there may have been a better way for Google to go about this. Something like a short form that was reviewed by a human before acceptance would have made the process much smoother. Let’s hope the confusion and problems surrounding the if I had Glass campaign don’t affect Glass’ eventual release.

I don’t see how anyone could have missed the big whopping $1500 price tag on that page that had maybe 5 sentences on how top enter. I bet must people put that hangtag in without looking at the rules, that’s why they didn’t know.

That was a rare display of Google being sloppy with data. It’s almost as though they didn’t properly classify all contest entries. Plus, some people (almost 2,000) were misspelling the tag in the beginning.

I got accepted into the program, but i lack the funds. When i see a contest and there are no rules but (give us something interesting you would do with the glasses if you had them) I’m assuming i get the pair of glasses with the sole stipulation that you do what you had told them you’d do.

Google continues to show they lack a “publicity” department. They design and make great things, but don’t know how to sell them. Reminds me of Apple in the 80′s. If they can solve their supply chain issues, they’ll be positioned to offer glass at competitive rates.

Yeah, I read everything about the contest, and therefore was more than aware of the price tag associated with it. Hell, I was working on getting the money before I got my invite because I wanted to be prepared.

Now that I’ve got my initial invite, all I’ve got to do is wait for the follow up. And hope and pray the whole thing doesn’t get nixed because of it.